“Okay!” Though the bin was nowhere near full, Celeste eagerly picked it up and rushed over to the backdirt pile to dump it. She poured the soil in as delicately as if it were a pile of diamonds.

“You have a way with animals,” I said.

“She’s just a little girl, Isaak. You don’t need to be so hard on her.”

My face reddened, but I scoffed. “You’re not the one who has to live with her. It gets old real fast.”

The ground was soft and slick from the light rain. My spade cut through it like a knife through butter. I worked methodically, waiting for Erick to turn his back or move away or something, but he and Professor Luna stood talking to Mom smack in the middle of the trench, blocking Tamara and me from the arch. There was no way either of us could move without him noticing.

About twenty minutes into digging, my tool struck something hard. A rock, or maybe another cephalopod fossil. I dutifully switched from shovel to brush, so as not to damage the object. It was a bit muckier than usual, with the ground being wet from the rain, but the ochre soil cleared relatively easily.

It wasn’t a rock. It was something metallic. I gingerly pulled it from the ground and looked at it in bewilderment. The object almost looked like an earpod, but I didn’t recognize the model. And it was old—really old. The metal had turned a sick, seafoam green, and the edges were rough and worn. The part that fit into the ear looked like it was made of some sort of synthetic material, which started crumbling into my gloved hand the longer I held it.

“Hey, Erick,” I started to call, when an unfamiliar voice interrupted me.

“Well, son, what do you have there?”

I looked up. On the walkway above the trench, a middle-aged man in a black suit with a peacock-patterned cravat was peering down at me. Despite the gray day, he was wearing mirrored sunglasses.

“I’m not sure. It looks like an earpod. Erick?”

Erick lifted his head and saw the man in the suit standing over us. “Joseph, what are you doing here? I didn’t think GSAF had an inspection scheduled for a few weeks yet.”

The man cautiously made his way down the slope. “I had the morning free and thought I’d drop by and see how things were going.” He took off the mirrored sunglasses and shot a glance in my direction. His eyes were a very pale blue, almost like ice, and they pierced right through me. I shifted uneasily. Something about this guy made me feel almost guilty, even though I hadn’t done anything. It was like he could read my mind, and knew I was up to something, somehow.